Misconceptions about Brain Evolution

A new Scientific
American article dispels a common
misconception about brain evolution: the idea that the brains of other
animals are the previous stages that led to human intelligence. Just as
people once thought evolution meant humans "evolved from monkeys" it was
commonly believed that the mammal brain evolved from the
reptile brain which evolved from the fish brain. This incorrect view
survived for longer than might be expected because of the linear scale
of life called scala
naturae developed by Medieval naturalists.
It ranked creatures based on their imagined importance. Later
researchers tried to interpret evolution, including evolution of the
brain, in terms of this linear scale. It wasn't until scientists in the
field of comparative neuroanatomy begin to learn more about brains that
it became clear that "complex brains and sophisticated cognition have
arisen multiple times in independent lineages of animals during the
earth’s evolutionary history." Nature, it seems, shares the motto of
Perl programmers, TIMTOWTDI
(There's More Than One Way To Do It).